[nicce]

It is not about profitability alone, but whether benefits are net positive for society over the long term. Profitability is easy with current standards. Get the users. Make them dependent. Increase the price. Make AI mandatory. List goes on.

[troupo]

> Profitability is easy with current standards. Get the users. Make them dependent. Increase the price. Make AI mandatory. List goes on.

"Easy". "Just" get more users and "just" increase prices to somehow cover hundreds of billions of invested dollars and hundreds of millions of running costs.

It's that easy. I'm surprised none of the companies mentioned in the article thought of that.

[nicce]

> I'm surprised none of the companies mentioned in the article thought of that.

I was just stating the obvious. That is what they are doing.

[troupo]

Currently they are throwing money onto the fire. Almost all of them are not just unprofitable. They are abysmally unprofitable.

The only reason they are raising prices is to try and recoup some of the ongoing operational costs. In the end it will only be Google left standing because Google has unlimited money, and they can price dump indefinitely long, and offer most things for free.

[jsnell]

From a quick skim, at least 90% of the article is about profitability. The remaining 10% is mostly bragging.